The Girl Child

I was at a barber shop yesterday and was waiting for my turn, the barber offered me sweets. When I asked him about the occassion, he very proudly said that a daughter was born to him. I was very happy to see the sight. Typically, the poor, lower middle class sections of the society are the ones where the girl child is not welcome. But this guy really made me see that perceptions are changing with more and more women doing well in studies, in jobs and are making people think about them differently.

One of his friends also came along to his shop and during their discussion, the barber said to him that her girl was not less in anyway than his friend’s son. This showed how proud was he of being a father of a daughter. These are the kind of changes we need today in society’s mindset to ensure gender equality in India.